UNHCR serves as the reference agency and key catalyst in efforts to prevent and end statelessness. Myanmar’s current legal framework for acquiring, retaining, and conferring citizenship does not comport with international standards. The 1982 citizenship law creates a hierarchy with three categories of citizenship and limits automatic acquisition of so-called “full” citizenship to children born to parents from a so-called indigenous or national race. People belonging to other ethnic groups face additional administrative hurdles. Those able to meet administrative requirements generally receive “naturalized” citizenship, which provides an inferior set of rights and afford holders less due process protection in situations of denationalization. Preventing instances of future statelessness requires legislative reform. In the interim, UNHCR advocates for authorities to apply clear, objective criteria while assessing citizenship claims and grant Rohingya citizens’ rights on an equal basis as other people.
UNHCR advocates for financial and administrative barriers associated with citizenship to be reduced. Capacity-building initiative focus on improving capacity of UN and national partners to provide protection and assistance to stateless persons and those at risk of statelessness, to improve mapping capacity, and enhance advocacy efforts. At national level, UNHCR and partners continue to pursue training initiatives with diverse stakeholders including lawyer networks, rule of law and justice actors, gender networks and seeks to expand the “Citizenship Network” which brings together actors working on these issues. Focus is on strengthening stakeholders’ capacity to engage on citizenship issues and develop advocacy strategies for law reform. A community empowerment approach will be expanded through partners to ensure communities have information on law and processes related to applying for identity documents. UNHCR maintains protection-focused advocacy and training and awareness-raising activities on statelessness, protection mainstreaming, prevention and response to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), persons with specific needs as well as child protection jointly with UN sister agencies and other expert organizations/institutions at the Maungdaw, Sittwe and national levels. Specific trainings on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse for implementing and operational partners will be rolled out at the beginning of the year.
UNHCR advocates for an open, transparent and consultative approach for stateless persons to apply for citizenship voluntarily under the current legal framework, while focusing long-term efforts on reforming the discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Law bringing it into accordance with international standards. UNHCR will continue to strategically engage with stakeholders including diplomatic missions on issues related to citizenship and documentation.
Prioritized response: All advocacy and training efforts will be prioritized, though with reduced number of training/workshops. UNHCR will continue to build capacity and raise awareness of protection, statelessness, SGBV, working with other actors to identify mitigation mechanisms with the communities in Rakhine.
Technical support and training will be prioritized in order to ensure that statelessness issues are streamlined in various humanitarian and development actions. Where possible, capacity-building events with government authorities and parliamentarians will be prioritized while maintaining a focus on national NGOs/CSO as part of national capacity development support. Institutional development and training support will be prioritized for Village Administrators, the police and other law enforcement entities where feasible. UNHCR will continue to support inter-agency meetings, joint advocacy, and information-sharing among relevant partners. Specific workshops and meetings will be held with project partners to enhance effective project implementation.